Robert and Candace chose to have their wedding ceremony and reception at Robert Paine Scripps Forum for Science, Society and the Environment. This is a beautiful oceanfront venue located in La Jolla. It seems to appeal to those that want a relaxed atmosphere and yet a modern look. They chose to have their reception in the Charles E. Scripps room, a small room in the front of the building. For a destination wedding with a limited amount of guests, it definitely worked well.

Wedding Ceremony

Prelude Seating:

Ambient

Bride’s Entrance:

(supplied by client)

Robert and Candace had their ceremony on the oceanfront lawn outside the Scripps Seaside Forum. An interesting story was to had here. Originally, they decided to omit my ceremony services and do the ceremony by themselves. To accomplish this, they had an iPod Touch, and a battery powered speaker. Unfortunately, they miscalculated the ability of their speaker, and it wasn’t able to do the job. Since I arrived at the venue with plenty of spare time, I had already (mostly) set up my reception system and was aware of their issue. I did some tests with the speaker, and no matter what I tried I just couldn’t get both their microphone and iPod to be loud enough! (Post-event research shows why– It supplied a mere 5 watts!)

When the best man came me with the issue, I suggested adding my ceremony package and they happily agreed. It made all the difference with their ceremony!

Wedding Reception

Cocktail Music:

Downtempo Trip-Hop (Thievery Corp, etc.)

Grand Entrance:

Beautiful Day – U2

Dinner Music:

Jazz/Blues Singers (Amy Winehouse, Adele, etc)

First Dance:

Let’s Stay Together – Al Green

Father Daughter Dance:

Unforgettable – Nat King Cole & Natalie Cole

Mother Son Dance:

This Is The Moment – Moody Blues

Cake Cutting:

Love You Madly – Cake

Last Dance:

To Make You Feel My Love – Adele

Cocktail hour was held on the outdoor patio. To provide sound outside for this, I used my wireless speaker system.

Wedding Reception

Once cocktail hour was over, I invited guests inside and we began their grand entrance.

Grand Entrance

Note: Many of these photos were not the actual ones I requested from the photographer. When I attempted to get the correct ones, I was told I could only have about a third of what I wanted so I chose to just use the ones I received. For parts of this wedding where I did not get professional photos I’ve used some of my own.

Immediately after the Grand Entrance, we went into dinner, then toasts.

Wedding Toasts

First Dance

When toasts were completed, I invitedRobert and Candace onto the dance floor and began their first dance.

Father Daughter Dance

Mother Son Dance

Wedding Dancing

After a bit of dancing we took a break and started the cake cutting.

Wedding Cake

Wedding Dancing Part II

Post-Reception

We had a blast! Guests stayed all the way until the end, and many stuck around to chat with me, get my business card, etc. Before Rob and Candace left, I made sure to get my signature post-reception photo with the newlyweds.

Congratulations to Robert and Candace and their families, and thanks for choosing The Creative Music DJ for your special day!

Additional Photos

Some cool photos of yours truly that were captured during the night.

Review

Robert and Candace posted the following review about my services on WeddingChannel (review site of The Knot).

We planned our San Diego wedding from Phoenix, so we had not met Dennis before our wedding day. We had no wedding planner, and neither of us had ever been through a wedding before, so inevitably there were a few things on the wedding day that we realized we hadn’t thought of. The day of the wedding we panicked, realizing that we needed a PA for the ceremony. Dennis was super flexible with our reservation, he showed up early and set us up with a killer PA system at the last minute. After the ceremony, he coordinated with the caterers and sorted out the entrance of the wedding party into the reception, and the first dances. Dennis was absolutely brilliant in ensuring that the reception flowed perfectly. Oh, he also plays great music. He played all the stuff we wanted him to play, took requests, and filled in the gaps expertly. He has an outstanding understanding of musical tastes; if you ask for Standards, he’ll play the good ones, if you ask for Ambient, you’ll get it, and if you ask him not to play ‘The Macarena’ he gets that you probably don’t want to hear ‘The Chicken Dance’ or ‘Cha Cha Slide’ either. The dance floor was packed the whole time, and at the end of the night nobody wanted to leave. On top of everything, Dennis set up a huge surprise for us at the end of the night that my wife and I will never forget. I could not imagine anybody having done a better job. Hire him, I promise you won’t be disappointed.